By Muyiwa Adetiba
It is generally accepted that most Newspaper Editors know more than they let on. The ability to know what to use and what to withhold is part of your information management; it is also part of your professional and ethical responsibilities because some ‘truths’ can have unwholesome ripple effects if used in their entirety. I will give an example.
I was an Assistant Editor in Punch at the height of the apartheid struggle. Like every young man at the time, I was indignant and very impatient with the pace and nature of the international fight against apartheid. Until I had ‘an instructive conversation’ with the late Brigadier Joe Garba who was then our External Affairs Minister. He specifically asked me to switch off the tape before he said “Do you know that there is not a single ‘Frontline State’ that can survive economically without South Africa? Many of them don’t even have access to seaports and depend on South Africa for imports. As I speak to you now, if I want to get a Frontline State, my calls would have to be routed through South Africa. So if we were to apply sanctions as rigorously as you guys want, our people would suffer.
These are realities that we must contend with.” I left chastised but with a better understanding of the complexities of politics. ‘Off record’ was a phrase I heard often during my interviewing days as high ranking officials tried to explain that things were not always black and white. There were also files and data which would come into your hands as an Editor but which could not be used because of their geo-political implications. Make no mistake; all Editors practice self –censorship –even in places with the so called free press.
So when a man who had risen through the ranks to become Editor and then MD of one of the most influential newspapers in the country called to ‘complain’ about one of my articles, I had to listen. He felt I was too effusive in my commendation of the concession the President made. He was particularly uncomfortable with the word ‘Statesman’. “Do you know how much money was taken out to fight this election? Do you know how much was spent in the last weeks of the election? Do you know what has gone on in this country in the past six years? He asked. “How can any man who has done this much damage to his country be called a Statesman? In fact, I pity the incoming President.
Things are in such a bad shape that I wonder where he is going to start from. It is obvious that he has to be prepared to hurt us, I mean all of us, before he can make any impact”. Given what I had earlier said, I believe he had more information which his paper could not use but which had made him angry.
In any case, the stories flying around would make anybody angry even if only half of them were true. Certain sections of the Price Waterhouse Coopers’ report on the NNPC audit went viral soon after the report was released to the public. What one gleaned makes one wonder at the competence — and patriotism—of many of the handlers of our economy. There seems to be a systematic looting at that sacred corporation which didn’t start yesterday and which successive leaders find convenient to turn a blind eye to. Incidentally, I was already high up in the hierarchy during the 2.8 billion naira saga around NNPC and General Buhari in the late 70s. Like a good journalist, I wanted to know more. So I arranged a ‘chat’ with the late Chief Bayo Kuku who was then the Vice-Chairman of Mobil Producing. After the usual ‘off record’ plea, he said of NNPC and the probe people were angling for at the time “They may not find the antelope they are looking for but they will find several bush rats”. Those were his words if I still remember correctly after so many years. The interpretation to today’s scenario is that while the missing figure might not be the exact amount that Mallam Lamido, the ex-Central Bank governor alleged, there would be several unaccounted for funds that would not do credit to that corporation a
Post a Comment